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The End User: Firefox users decide fate

For a software company that is rapidly cutting into Microsoft's share of the Web browser market, Mozilla Corp. has a particularly unimpressive European headquarters.

Firefox, Mozilla's main product, has been downloaded more than 190 million times, but visitors expecting a grandiose reception desk will be disappointed - if they can even find the company's single unmarked room on the fourth floor of a rundown building in central Paris.

"We don't need to impress people with a fancy sales office," said Tristan Nitot, founder and president of Mozilla Europe, who shares the single room with two others. "After all, we give away our most popular product for free."

Firefox is a free, open source program that is developed and translated into local languages by volunteers. It is available for Windows, Apple and Linux computers. The company, based in California, generates revenue through partnerships with sites like Google, Yahoo and Amazon that have their Web search engines included in the default version of the browser.

Although Firefox is now available in 39 languages, Mozilla employs just 55 people worldwide, Nitot said.

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